Page 37 of Fire for Effect

“Are you trying to get rid of a body, Psycho?” I said, a little too loud, as I felt every eye in the room turn to me. “I’ve got easier ways to do that.”

Because I will kill this guy-with-a-girl’s name and you’ll never find his fucking body.

“It’s a purely theoretical exercise.” Taz smiled as she looked out the door where Riley had gone. “But I’ll keep that in mind next time I put a bullet in you.”

Taz started talking to that biker again, and I was fucking done. I ordered a basket of fries, a burger, and onion rings from Ellen, and another couple beers before downing mine.

I was done with her attention being elsewhere. Did that make me a juvenile? Sure. But I had come here to see her, and it was time I had her fucking attention.

“Food’s on its way,” I said, interrupting their conversation, nodding my head to a vacant booth.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” she said without looking at me.

“Come on, Psycho,” I reached out to grab her bicep and pull her from the Jukebox, when the fucking biker prick stepped forward.

“She said she’d be there in a sec,” old biker man scowled.

I prickled. What the fuck was this guy doing? Who the hell was he? Were they friends?

“You in the habit of laying your hands on women without their permission?” His shoulders flexed back, and I was ready to get into a fight. “That’s no way to treat this kind of woman.”

If I couldn’t bend Taz over a table, take her from behind, and mark her with my teeth, then I needed to bloody my fists. I wasn’t above taking on an entire MC to do it.

“Don’t act like you know what kind of woman she is.”

That came out wrong.

Really, really wrong. I’d sound like I was calling her a slut, but I meant that she was a woman who could take care of herself.

It was too late to backtrack now.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The guy had the word “Cobra” tattooed on his knuckles.

“What do you think it means?” Yup, I was dug in now.

Then Taz laughed. And it wasn’t a little quiet, demure, feminine laugh either. It was loud and boisterous, and nearby patrons turned their heads to look at her.

“You’re okay with him treating you like this?” Cobra said, never taking his eyes off me.

Why did I feel like I was on the wrong side of this? Like I was the bad guy, and he was the one on her side?

She studied me with those amused eyes as her pearly teeth glinted in the cheap Edison lights overhead.

“He’s not calling me a skank.” She covered her snicker. “He was trying to say that I can stand up for myself, but then it came out wrong and now he can’t back down.”

I wanted to be mad at her, but I couldn’t be. Not when she was laughing. She didn’t do that enough. I could kiss her when she did that. It would be so easy to grab her face and…

“He’s one of my oldest friends,” she said, smirking at me.

That word again - friend.

I wanted to shake her for using that word. I could punch myself for having not claimed her yet… I shoulda done so long ago.

“Our food’s ready,” I grumbled, looking at the bar where Ellen dropped our food. “Come on, Guerro.”

“Guerro?” asked the biker.

“Taz Guerro,” she said, with a smirk. Then she amended. “Trinity.”

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